Oregon 'cautiously optimistic' it can sell out Autzen Stadium for the Ducks' season opener

View full sizeAssociated PressOregon coach Chip Kelly, seen here leading the Ducks onto the field for a game at Autzen Stadium, said the 5,000 remaining tickets for the season opener is a "great opportunity" for new fans to see the Ducks play.

EUGENE
— Oregon football fans who griped earlier this year about another increase in
ticket prices have spoken with their wallets, too.

The
result?

The
Ducks' 13-year streak of sellouts at Autzen Stadium could come to a surprising
end two weeks from today.

As
of Friday morning, about 5,000 tickets remained for the Ducks' season opener
against Arkansas State on Sept. 1, leaving UO officials scrambling for a quick
way to promote one of the most marketable teams in college football.

Autzen
Stadium has been sold out for every Oregon game — 82 in a row — since September
1999.

Oregon
sent out a press release Friday noting the ticket availability, and at least a
couple hundred tickets were sold by the end of the day. Craig Pintens, a senior
associate athletic director, said the UO also plans to ramp up its advertising
a bit next week in hopes of selling the remaining tickets.

"We think our fans will rally," he said.
"We have one of the best home-field advantages in all of college football and
we want to make sure it's full. When Autzen is full, there are very few
stadiums that can compare to it."

Oregon
expanded the stadium in 2002, raising capacity to 54,000. Since then, the
smallest sellout crowd was 55,187
against Idaho on Sept. 14, 2002.

A reserved seat for that game cost $29.

In March, with the Ducks coming off
their first Rose Bowl victory in 95 years, Oregon announced it was raising
ticket prices for the fifth year in a row.

Tickets are now $66 for a seat to watch
the Ducks play Arkansas State and Fresno State (Sept. 8). The cheapest ticket
for the Ducks' home game against Tennessee Tech (Sept. 15) is $39.

The base price for a reserve season ticket all seven home
games this season is $486, a 13 percent increase from 2011. Many season-ticket
packages also require a donation to the Duck Athletic Fund.

Oregon reported that season-ticket renewals surpassed 90
percent this year, with more than 40,000 season tickets sold. That's a drop
from a 96-percent renewal rate last year.

Pintens said the UO looks at several
factors when deciding whether to increase ticket prices. Supply and demand are
primary factors, sure, but keeping the UO football program financially
competitive with other elite program across the country is a driving force,
too.

Oregon was ranked No. 4 in the final
Associated Press poll last season, after the Rose Bowl. Oregon's football
revenues of $27.7 million, however, ranked No. 32 in the country.

The Ducks, with an annual budget of
about $93 million, have projected to sell out all seven home games this season.

"Obviously, if we don't meet the
numbers we have projected, then we'll be disappointed," Pintens said. "We would
have to figure out a way to generate that revenue from other sources, because
we're operating on a zero-based budget. (The potential of lost revenue) not
only hurts our football program, it hurts all our other programs as well."

The
underwhelming nonconference slate, in addition to the raised ticket prices in a
still-sluggish economy, seems to have turned some fans off.

The
Oregon-Arkansas State game will also be broadcast on ESPN, for a 7:30 p.m.
scheduled kickoff, meaning a fan in, say, Vancouver can avoid the 120-mile
drive down Interstate 5 and watch the game from the comfort of his or her own
couch.

Another
factor in the ticket availability: Oregon's fall term classes don't start until
late September, meaning most students will not be back on campus for the Sept.
1 opener. That has left several thousand tickets allotted for students
available for the public to purchase.

"I
think it's a great opportunity," UO coach Chip Kelly said after practice
Friday. "Because all I've heard since I've been here is how hard it is to get a
ticket to the game. Now there's 5,000 open, so the people who've never had a
chance to get here ... (can) come see us play Arkansas State."

Indeed,
Pintens said making fans aware that there are tickets available is the main
goal. Because home games have been sold out for so long, he said many fans
assume games will always be sold out.

"The perception is that they're not
available," Pintens said.

Fans
who might have been waiting to purchase the cheaper standing-room-only tickets
could be out of luck, Pintens cautioned. Those tickets only become available if
and when tickets for seats are sold out.